One of Michigan’s largest counties found additional noncitizens on its voter rolls with just weeks to go in one of the most competitive Senate races in the country.
For the third quarter of 2026, Macomb County had 236 self-reported noncitizens who were summoned for jury duty. Of those who self-reported, nine were registered to vote and one had a voting history, according to new numbers the Macomb County clerk’s office first shared with the Daily Signal.
As of Wednesday, covering 2025 and the first two quarters of 2026, the county’s website listed 40 previously self-reported noncitizens. Of those, five showed a voting history.
Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini told the Daily Signal that the issue of noncitizens on the voter rolls shouldn’t be a partisan concern.
“It shouldn’t matter if it’s Democrats or Republicans,” Forlini said. “I have turned the information over to the Secretary of State’s office. They just threw their hands up and said it’s a county matter.”
In August, Michigan Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office announced charges against five noncitizens for voting in the 2024 election.
Forlini noted that Nessel prosecuted one of the individuals he previously identified.
Forlini’s update comes as Republican Mike Rogers faces Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in a closely contested Senate contest that could determine control of the chamber.
The number of noncitizens registered to vote the state is potentially much larger than Macomb County’s sampling, which is from about 20,000 jury summons sent in 2025 and 2026. The county, with a population of almost 900,000, is the third-most-populous county in Michigan.
“To the best of my knowledge, most county clerks lack the resources for this. I would surmise the problem is bigger in Oakland and Wayne counties,” Forlini noted.
Michigan has seen several federal and state arrests for election crimes over the last two years.
In January, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson called Forlini’s initial announcement that 14 noncitizens were registered to vote “reckless.” Her office’s review confirmed that four were noncitizens and three were citizens. Benson is the Democrat candidate for governor.
“In my office, we’ve always taken election crimes seriously, and prosecute attacks on our voting systems to the fullest extent of the law,” Nessel said in announcing the charges. “We’re upholding election integrity by investigating all claims of non-citizen voters, as rare as they are, and holding bad actors accountable when they refuse to abide by the laws that keep our elections safe and secure.”
In April 2025, the Michigan Board of Elections referred 13 individuals who appeared to be noncitizens and voted in the 2024 election to the attorney general
Also, the Justice Department announced in January that an illegal immigrant pleaded guilty to voting in Michigan’s 2020 election.
In 2025, federal prosecutors in Michigan charged a Chinese national with voting in the state, and last month they charged a Russian national with voting in the state in 2024.
Forlini also is the Republican candidate for Michigan secretary of state, an office that oversees statewide elections.
The Daily Signal reached out to the campaign of Democrat secretary of state candidate Garlin Gilchrist, the state’s lieutenant governor. The campaign did not respond by publication time.
The Michigan secretary of state’s office did not respond to inquiries for this story by publication time.
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]
